Why English spelling can be difficult to learn

Many languages have spelling systems that closely match their sounds. This is not true for English. English spelling has not changed much over time, but its pronunciation has changed a lot. This means that English spelling today still shows pronunciations from hundreds of years ago.

The many origins of English words

English words come from four main sources. Each source had its own way of spelling. This made English spelling difficult from the start. The main sources are:

• Germanic (from Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse)
• French (from Norman French and Parisian French)
• Latin
• Greek

When the Anglo-Saxons first started writing with Latin letters, they did not have enough letters for all the sounds in Old English. So, some letters had to stand for more than one sound.

In the past, written English was just a way to show spoken English. There were many different ways to spell words because of different dialects, which are ways of speaking a language in different areas. Even one person might spell the same word in different ways. For example, the writer Shakespeare spelled his own name in several ways.

Norman French influence

When the Normans from France took control of England, their French language had a big effect on English. Many French words came into English. These words often kept their French spelling, even though their sounds changed to fit English.

For example, the word figure comes from French and the word bigger is Germanic. They look similar but sound different. Another example is marriage, which comes from French, and bridge, which is Germanic.

The letter "c" in French is often pronounced like "s" before the letters "e" and "i". When French words came into English, they kept this rule. For example, the Germanic word sit starts with "s", but the French loanword city starts with "c" but has an "s" sound. The same is true for the Germanic word kill and the French loanword cell.

Norman scribes, who were people who copied texts, also changed the spelling of existing English words to be more like French. For example, the "ch" sound in words like church was first written with just "c". But the Normans started using "ch" because that is how it was written in French at the time.

Later, "ch" also began to represent the "sh" sound in words like champagne and château, which were also borrowed from French. Sometimes, the "ch" sound is spelled tch after short vowel sounds, like in catch and Dutch. But there are exceptions, like much and such.

Another change was for the "kw" sound. It used to be written as "cw", like in cwen (which means queen). The Normans changed it to qu. This was because "qu" was used in Anglo-Norman French, a dialect of French spoken in England. So, some French loanwords have the "kw" sound, like question and equal.

However, Parisian French later became more important. In Parisian French, "qu" was often pronounced like "k". So, words borrowed from French later on have the "k" sound, like etiquette. There are also words like physique, unique, quay, and lacquer that use "qu" but do not have a "kw" sound because "qu" became a common way to write the "k" sound in French.

Norman scribes also brought in the spelling "ou" for the "oo" sound. So, the word hus (which means house) began to be spelled with "ou", closer to the modern spelling. This also happened with mus (which means mouse).

Sometimes, the letter "u" was changed to "o" when it came before "v", "n", or "m". This was because "u", "v", "n", and "m" looked very similar when written by hand. So, we have words like come, some, love, and son, where "o" has the short "uh" sound. But this change did not happen for all words, so we also have words like dumb and drum.

The Great Vowel Shift and printing

The biggest changes in how English words were pronounced happened between about 1350 and 1700. This process is called the "Great Vowel Shift". During this time, all the long vowel sounds in Middle English changed. For example:

• The "ah" sound in name became the "ay" sound.
• The "ee" sound in sweete became the "ay" sound in great.
• The "ee" sound in time became the "eye" sound.
• The "oh" sound in boote became the "oo" sound in boot.
• The "aw" sound in boat became the "oh" sound.
• The "oo" sound in hous became the "ow" sound in house.

You might think that when the sounds changed, the spellings would also change to match the new sounds. But this did not happen. In the 1400s and 1500s, English spelling became more fixed because of the printing press. So, the spelling of English words largely stayed the same, even as pronunciation continued to change.

The fate of English spelling was in the hands of a few people: printers and their workers, and authors. There was no official group to decide on spellings. Authors wrote their works, and printers created the final text. Printers had a lot of freedom with spelling.

When William Caxton brought the first printing press to England in 1476, he used a Flemish printer who changed some English spellings to match Flemish spelling rules. This is why words like ghost and ghastly have an "h". Printers made many decisions about which spellings to use. Over the 15th and 16th centuries, a standard spelling gradually appeared, mostly based on the English spoken in London.

This process led to some unusual things. Sometimes, a word's spelling came from one dialect, while its pronunciation came from another. For example, one and once use East Midlands spelling but are pronounced with a Southern English sound. The word busy has a West Midlands spelling but an East Midlands or London pronunciation. Bury has a West Midlands spelling but a Kent pronunciation.

Printers generally preferred older spellings. They did not change spellings to reflect the new pronunciations from the Great Vowel Shift.

Silent letters and false re-spellings

During the Great Vowel Shift, some consonant sounds also disappeared from words, but the letters remained in writing. For example, the "k" in knife used to be pronounced. The word knight has both a silent "k" and a silent "gh".

Norman scribes used "gh" to represent two sounds. One of these, like the "ch" in German licht, disappeared in English. The other sound changed to "f" or disappeared. For example, light came from Middle English "liçt", and night came from Middle English "niçt". The word laugh came from Middle English "laughe" with an "x" sound, which became an "f" sound. The word delight had no "gh" sound in Middle English, but it was re-spelled with "gh" to look like light.

Another type of change was re-spelling words to match their original Latin or Greek forms. For example, doubt and debt came into English from French without a "b". But they were re-spelled with a "b" to match their Latin origins, dubitare and debitum. The word indict had no "c" in Middle English. A "c" was added to match its Latin origin, indicto.

Similarly, isle had no "s" in Middle English. It came from French. It was re-spelled with an "s" because the French word was also re-spelled with an "s". This change was then incorrectly applied to the word island, which had no "s" in Middle English and does not share the same origin as isle.

Another mistaken re-spelling happened with words ending in "mb". For example, the "b" in dumb used to be pronounced but later became silent, yet it remained in writing. However, some other words ending in "m" were wrongly re-spelled to end in "mb", like limb, crumb, numb, and thumb. This happened because the "b" was silent in some words, and people started adding it to words where it was not needed.

The Renaissance and new loanwords

Another big change happened during the Renaissance. English borrowed many new words from French, Latin, Greek, and other European languages. These words were often for new ideas in science, medicine, and art. There was also a growing interest in Latin and Greek literature. Examples of these new words include epitome, vignette, repertoire, amateur, camouflage, anesthesia, decorum, notorious, chlorine, and the word Renaissance itself (which means "rebirth" in French).

Since then, English has continued to borrow words from many other languages. These words often keep their original spelling, or a very similar spelling. Some examples are Japanese karaoke, Polynesian tattoo, Spanish aficionado, and Chinese kowtow.